The CEO'S Secret

Chapter 1

Emma took a deep breath reclining in the leather seat of her new office. “New! Sweet Mary. s**t just got real.” Wait till Maman hears about this. She could just picture her excitement over the phone as she tried to process the information. “Emma, you mean you now work for Hudson Industries?” She could hardly believe it herself. It still felt like something out of a movie when she received the call a week ago asking if she would be available for an interview the next morning. “Yes!” she screamed down the receiver and cringed inwardly at her energetic response. She cleared her throat discreetly,

“Um... yes, I would be delighted to.”

“Perfecto” The voice responded with a phony French accent. “See you at 8 am sharp. Don’t be late.”

“Of course, I won’t. Thank you—“She heard the dial tone as the call was dropped abruptly.

“Oh, my God!” she'd screamed internally.

The interview process was so easy. Her interviewers were all warm and friendly. She explained that she was a professional designer and she once worked with Lily and Blooms but had to leave because of clashing work values. They nodded in understanding, her CV was impressive. They told her she would have to start as an entry-level staff member as a company policy and her emphatic nod was enough answer to their unspoken question. In a whirlwind of two more interview processes, she was eventually accepted. The starting salary made her visit the toilet twice and in between the visits, she thanked all the saints for leading her to this place with a monthly salary enough to pay her rent annually.

“I would have to prove myself here.” She thought as she reclined further into the leather seat. “This company is unlike any other company I’ve ever worked at before.” She remembered that the lead interviewer mentioned passingly that they had a CEO but he hardly left his office, and no one had really seen him up close except his secretary. She wondered what kind of man he was to build such an impressive edifice.

“Well, you have no business thinking about an elusive CEO. You’ve got work to be done, so begin!” She snapped herself back to reality.

The next few weeks went fast for Emma. She was learning so many things at once and it seemed unending. Not like she wanted it to end though, she discovered that she enjoyed this job. The thrill of coming up with creative sketches that came alive under her fluid fingers to the joy of seeing them as clothes, masterpieces ready to be worn and flaunted on a runway by drop-dead gorgeous models. None of her designs had made it past her notepad, but she was not deterred. She believed that one day, Stefano, their extremely talented and crazy head designer, would take her ideas more seriously.

She kept to herself mostly but a large part of it was unintentional. She resumed work very early and was the last to leave. Her co-workers thought she was a snub especially as she never came out to eat during lunchtime but preferred to eat in the comfort of her office, poring over documents. But after the first week, they ignored her, labelling her as the weird American and cooked up theories about why she never came out for lunch.

There were quite a few things Emma found that she couldn’t quite get used to and that were some parts of the work culture. Having lived in Paris for close to a year, she still never understood why everyone resumed work by 9 – 10 am and closed early. She’d lived in New York all her life until she moved to Paris for work and she still couldn’t reconcile the differences between the two cities.

La Bisé seemed the strangest to her. It was the traditional French greeting of kissing one’s cheek and Emma wondered why on earth her colleagues would imagine that she wanted to kiss their cheeks as a form of greeting. It didn’t help that as a child, she’d always been averse to touch and extra displays of affection. She tried her best to avoid it by coming earlier than her colleagues. However, she loved this city and it was starting to grow on her.

She loved the food, the wine, the croissants, and mostly the coffee. Drawing back her chair from the table, she stood up and performed little stretches in her upper arms and neck to redistribute blood to her numb joints. She wondered how long she’d been working, it seemed like a while because the office was completely silent. “s**t!” She blurted out, spying the long hand of the clock on twelve and the shorter one on seven. She’d gone and overdid it again.

“I need to stop working overtime. This is not New York Emma, get a grip on yourself.”

Shutting her office blinds, she gingerly packed to go home. Conscious of time now, she hurried out of the office willing the elevators to still be functional. She desperately hoped she hadn’t been locked in. A loud crash from somewhere in the building stopped her mid-stride. A golf stick was hung nearby, she seized it, holding it in front of her with a fearful gaze, and called out.

“Who’s there?! “

Silence

A loud clatter of broken silverware broke through the silence.

Darting fearful eyes around, heart in her mouth, Emma yelled “Whoever you are, I have called the police and they are on their way already. I’ll have you know that I have a brown belt and will not go down without a fight.

A soft chuckle.

Swinging around sharply towards the direction of the chuckle, Emma was confronted with a sight that made her knees buckle.

“A fighter, I see.”

“Who are you?” She ventured bravely, resolve weakening at the six-foot Adonis who stood in front of her. She had never before in her life seen a man painfully handsome. He had an imposing jawline that hinted at blue blood and a set of jaws that looked strong enough to crush her to pieces. His eyes were piercingly green. His nose was straight and narrow, broken in the middle revealing his street worldliness beneath the classy exterior. Dressed in a two-piece that seemed to have been molded to his finely crafted muscles, Emma was unaware that she was staring.

“Were you trying to play hero?”

It took a few minutes for the words to sink in and when she looked on uncomprehendingly, he signaled to the golf stick she was still holding onto tightly. Like a flash, she remembered her primary objective.

“Who are you and why are you still here when everyone has gone home?”

He leaned against an office desk, an amused smile playing on his lips.

“What do I get for answering that question?”

“Excuse me?”

He repeated it slowly, “What do I get for answering your question?”

Emma was flabbergasted. Who was this man and what gave him the right to be so cocky? She wanted to slap that arrogant smirk off his face.

Chin raised haughtily, she rolled out “You’ll be lucky I do not smash some vital body parts of yours before the police come in.” “And!” She added eyes flashing “They are on their way already.

The strange man let out a burst of long and disbelieving laughter. He stared at the small fiery woman in front of him again and dissolve into another round of convulsive laughter.

“Do I look like a joke to you?”

“No, you don’t.” He replied with a ghost of a smile on his face.

Clearly, he was enjoying this. Teeth gritted, she grounded out “I’ll ask this one last time and I promise you, anything I do to you at this point, I’ll not be responsible for it.”

He stared at her impassively. She watched for his reaction to her words but he revealed nothing. His mouth no longer shifted into a smile and his eyes, so dark and brooding became hostile suddenly. Is it just her or did the temperature in the room drop down a bit?

“Who are you?”

“I am Alexander Hudson and I own this company. Now the question should be, who are you, and what on earth is that monstrosity you’re wearing?”

The ground shifted beneath Emma as her jaw fell wide open and the golf stick fell away from her lifeless hands.

How did she manage to get her dream job and lose it in the space of one month? She had all but threatened the CEO of this company who was by default, her boss. That last bit was delivered like bad cheese in her mouth and she couldn’t believe how stupid she’s been.

No wonder he had laughed so hard, he probably must have been wondering how someone so dumb got into his company. If not him, who else? Of course, it had to be him, she’d heard all those rumors about him working so late that nobody ever got to see his face. So why didn’t she think it had to be him first?

“Stupid!” She moaned in her head, eyes shut in embarrassment as she thought fast of what she could do to redeem herself. Attempting a phony smile, she beamed in his direction, shifting her unruly locks to the back of her ear firmly.

“Mr. Hudson, I’m very sorry about what just happened. I didn’t know anyone else was in the office apart from me due to the late hour.”

“Silly girl, Of course, he would be. It is his office,” The voice in her head chided her harshly, nevertheless, she trudged on.

Clearing her throat, she asked as sweetly as she could

“I do hope the events of tonight have not given you a wrong impression of me.”

He studied her for a long moment. “It definitely has, I’m surprised you claim to be an employee of this company and I’ve never set my eyes on you before. In fact...” His eyes did a thorough mocking assessment of what she was wearing from head to toe, pausing briefly on her breasts. “I wonder who hired you here.”

Emma’s face went red with embarrassment, and her phony smile fell away, replaced with an angry look. He wasn’t touching her, yet her body felt overwhelmingly conscious of every inch of his, as if it had been sleeping for the past twenty-three years and had suddenly been awakened. The room suddenly seemed small and suffocating, she needed to get out of here.

“Okay, if it has, I’m sorry. Look, I’m supposed to be out of here in the next five minutes. So, now that we’ve both established that we are not burglars, can I leave now?”

He walked closer till they were only a few inches apart from each other and stared at her for a long time till the silence became unbearable. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, it was to ask. “What is your name?”

She stared at him with narrowed eyes but answered his question. “Emma. Emma Andrews.”

“Emma.” He tasted the name on his tongue, it felt seductive coming from his mouth. He stressed the first syllable, caressing it lovingly till it rolled out of his tongue like music. Emma had never heard her name pronounced that way before. She wondered why he was just staring at her with his green amused eyes. He was starting to make her feel uncomfortable. Seized by a sudden pettiness to reply to his biting words earlier and an urge to get away from him, she said.

“With an attitude like that, I doubt you’ll get far. Not all of us are doormats.”

Sharply, she reached for the elevator got in, and hurriedly pressed the ground floor, her heart pounding rapidly. As the lift descended, she wondered if she still had a job to resume in the morning. Probably not. Well, she’ll show up tomorrow all the same. There was no cowering to be done. No, not Emma. Her mother didn’t raise her that way.